The government’s decision to increase fines for landlords who fail to tackle poor housing conditions has been welcomed by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), but the organisation has questioned whether tougher penalties will have any meaningful impact unless councils improve enforcement.
Under the changes introduced today, local authorities will be able to issue fines of up to £7,000 to landlords who refuse to address serious hazards in rented homes, alongside planned reforms to the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
NRLA chief executive Ben Beadle said responsible landlords who maintain their properties and deal promptly with repairs have little to fear from the changes. However, he argued that tougher sanctions alone will not solve the problem of poor housing standards.
He said: “The overwhelming majority of landlords provide good quality and safe housing. That will be made easier thanks to the Government’s work with the NRLA to improve guidance for landlords and tenants to identify and swiftly rectify hazards in properties.
“Good landlords, who meet standards and undertake repairs swiftly, will be unaffected by these tough penalties. But those criminal landlords, who undermine the reputation of all those who do the right thing, will feel the full force of the law.
“Increasing fines though, misses the point – namely that councils are not using their extensive and existing powers effectively to tackle rogue and criminal landlords. According to Freedom of Information requests by the NRLA, between 2023 and 2025, just a quarter of all fines issued to private landlords were actually collected by councils.
The NRLA points to Freedom of Information data showing that between 2023 and 2025, councils collected just one in four financial penalties issued to private landlords, raising questions over the effectiveness of existing enforcement activity.
Beadle said the priority should be ensuring local authorities have the resources and capacity needed to identify and pursue rogue landlords, rather than simply increasing the size of penalties available to them.
Beadle continued: “If the government’s plans are to work, councils need the resources to do the job properly and these figures show that so many do not. The government should properly assess enforcement capacity and require councils to publish annual reports on activity to ensure accountability.
“Crucially, this should all be underpinned by the introduction of a new national Chief Environmental Health Officer, empowered to lead the charge for better enforcement across government.
The NRLA is calling on the government to assess local authority enforcement capability and require councils to publish annual reports detailing their enforcement activity and outcomes.
The organisation has also renewed its call for the creation of a national Chief Environmental Health Officer to coordinate enforcement efforts and drive consistency across the sector.
The comments come as ministers seek to strengthen standards in the private rented sector through a combination of tougher enforcement measures and wider reforms to housing safety regulations.
“Ministers need to develop pro-growth policies to support responsible landlords to provide the new, good quality homes to rent that so many tenants desperately need,” Beadle added.
Landlord fines to hit £7,000 – but will councils collect them?
